Peanut, peanut butter... and wine?!

Update on the Fraise strawberry wine... it goes really well with a fluffernutter sandwich. See, I decided to have dinner after all.

Cleaning out the wine fridge Part 3 - Life is uncertain; eat dessert first!

Tonight after a long day of packing I decided to have a little dessert before dinner - dessert wine that is! The sweet stuff included a bottle of Rhode Island ice wine and a NY strawberry wine.

My sister got me this bottle of 2007 ice wine from Newport Vineyards. Ice wine is a treasure because it is made from grapes that have been left on the vine long enough into the cool months to freeze. The frozen grapes are then picked and crushed, and the resultant juice is very concentrated and sweet. The whole process takes patience and care, and yields are usually low. This ice wine was made from Vidal Blanc, a white hybrid grape with a thick skin, well-suited to this chilly style. The ice wine was delicious - with a silky texture, fresh apricot, pronounced honey and elderflower flavors. A really pretty wine for this summer night. Thanks, sista!

The strawberry wine, called "Fraise," was from Alison Wines and Vineyards in the Hudson Valley and was a gift from my old boss. Wine is technically a fermented beverage made from grapes, but other fermented fruit beverages can call themselves wine as long as the fruit base is specified. So, there are no grapes in here - just strawberries. It smelled intoxicatingly like strawberry jam and tasted only slightly less sweet. It reminded me of these fresh dried strawberries I used to get from Fresh Direct - yum! It would probably be even better over vanilla ice cream or chocolate cake... maybe I'll go out and get some of that now. Who needs dinner?

Cleaning out the wine fridge Part 2 - Aussie Holiday

Back in February I went down under on a dream holiday of relaxation and adventure. I visited some wineries in the Hunter Valley and Yarra Valley and tasted some great wines from small producers. When I came back home I had a soft spot for Shiraz so I bought 6 bottles of the 2008 Layer Cake Shiraz from South Australia on special at Crush wines. After taking inventory of my fridge recently I noticed I still had 5 of the 6 bottles plus a 2003 Jacob's Creek Reserve Chardonnay from South Eastern Australia that I think someone gave to me at my fondue send-off party before I left for my trip. I decided I'd take the Chard and a bottle of Layer Cake to last night's Philharmonic in Central Park, one of my favorite events of the summer.

Chardonnay is usually never my first choice of still white (bubbly is another story) unless I know for a fact it has been stainless-steel fermented. A lot of Chards are oaked and I tend to not like this style. However, the few years on the Jacob's Creek served it well, and it did have some nice crisp flavors underneath the popcorn nose.

The Layer Cake was divine - sort of like a chocolate covered strawberry, which in my opinion is the perfect dessert food. It's dry, but it could actually be dessert on its own because of these berry/chocolate flavors. It's definitely a heavier wine and not so much a "summer sipper," but I'll look forward to finishing off this lot over the next couple of weeks, especially if these cool nights continue.

Cheers, mates!

Cleaning out the wine fridge Part 1 - Old v. New PN

Since I'm moving out of NYC this month I've been working on cleaning out my wine fridge before it goes into storage. The other night some girl friends and I did a little Pinot Noir tasting, Old World vs. New World. It wasn't a fair comparison, I fully admit, since the 2 PN's also differed widely in age. But hey, sometimes you have to work with what you have. The wines:

Morey Saint Denis 1er Cru, Cote d'Or Burgundy, 1998 ($70)
vs.
Bella Vida "Tardy" Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley Oregon, 2006 ($35)

The Burgundy was a ruby color with a silky texture and refined flavors of strawberry-rhubarb pie and clove, as classic as your favorite Prada flats. The Oregon PN was a pretty magenta color with a jammy nose and blackberry and cinnamon flavors, more like those platform heels that scream, "take me out, I can walk the streets of NYC, I promise!"

The girls were split over which they liked better. I loved them both. Flats or heels, to each her own!

House me

I've been looking online for a harvest rental in Watkins Glen, NY, the super cute town at the base of Seneca Lake, just 15 mins south of Wiemer. I'm not being especially picky in my search - I'd settle for a shack on the lake if it were available and had running water. I've even considered refurbishing this barn on Wiemer's Magdalena vineyard site, but it looks like the roof is falling in and that goes beyond my limited fixing capabilities. I've come across some lovely vacation rentals but the minimums are 4 people. Anyone want to join me?

If anyone knows anyone who might know of someplace I could sleep and bathe from Sept - Nov, please let me know!

The Other Cab + Meat Melange

This past weekend some friends and I sampled tasty meats from our friend Jake Dickson, owner of Dickson's Farmstand Meats (http://dicksonsfarmstand.com/). Jake sources his meat from small-scale family farms in New York State and sells it at the Chelsea Market Thursdays - Sundays. He and his fiance, Jen, suggested we do a steak tasting and helped us choose the cuts. We went with ribeye, flat iron, and sirloin. They gave us instructions and we were off!

I paired the meats with a Cabernet Franc, one of my favorite reds and "the other Cab" as compared to Cabernet Sauvignon. Cab Franc is a lighter style red that is less tannic than Cab Sauv and therefore a bit easier to drink. It also tends to have spicier, greener flavors. It is often included in Bordeaux blends in small amounts, alongside the dominant Cab Sauv and Merlot, and in the Loire region of France it dominates the reds. NY's Finger Lakes and Long Island regions also do Cabernet Franc on its own really well. I happened to have Hermann J. Wiemer's 2006 Cabernet Franc on hand for this pairing.

The meat melange was amazing - the cuts were so tender and fresh. In my limited steak experience I've never had ribeye or flat iron, so I don't have much to go on, but these meats had a grassy, organic quality. The ribeye, my favorite, was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The flat iron was everything I hoped it would be. The sirloin was the best I'd ever had. And the wine - the lightness of the Cab Franc really balanced the hearty steaks. It had notes of cherry on the nose and bell pepper and cinnamon on the palate. With certain bites of steak there was a lingering chocolate finish. It was the perfect marriage of flavor and texture. Cab Franc + meat melange = perfection.

Special thanks to Jake and Jen for their amazing meats and exceptional customer service! And to my fellow tasters for preparing the meat while I napped on the couch.

The perfect summer wine

Now that summer in NY is actually here, Riesling is the perfect wine for it - crisp, fruity, complex, and great with or without food. I recommend Hermann J. Wiemer's Dry Riesling, as does Eric Asimov of the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/dining/reviews/20pour.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=dining

For those who like a sweeter style, Wiemer's Semi-dry Riesling and Gewurtraminer are also favorites. All 3 of these wines in the 2007 vintage are under $20! You can find Wiemer wines at Astor Wines in Manhattan.

Cheers to the weekend!

Visit to Wiemer

I recently visited Wiemer for the first time and I am excited to get started there in September! The winery is structured as a barn with a high ceiling and little square windows to let peaks of light in. When you walk in it has that smell I love - a mixture of grape juice, wood, and yeast that you can't get anywhere besides a winery. There is an outside tasting area that was perfect for the warm June weekend.

I helped with labeling, feeding bottles onto the conveyor belt and making sure they came out looking perfect. We entertained some tasting groups and then I went over to Cornell to do a Wiemer tasting for their reunion. The wines were a hit! My table was swarmed with wine lovers for the full 2 hours.

Later that day I did some barrel sampling; I'd never done this before so it was really interesting to taste the wine in the interim stages. No previews though! You'll have to wait for the 2008 release.

Look forward to returning soon and getting my hands really dirty!